Tom Thug was a long running humour strip by Lew Stringer which began in Oink in May 1986 before later transferring to Buster in 1988 when Oink! was cancelled (at this point, the strip's title changed to Tom Thug's Skooldayz). Tom Thug was a boy encouraged by his skinhead father to be a school bully, as he himself had been. Tom, however, was so thick that he could never get anything right, so his attemmpts at being a bully usually backfired on him. The strip continued in Buster until the comics final issue in December 1999/January 2000, although the last couple of years contained reprints of earlier material. The final issue contained an all-new Tom Thug strip, in which Tom, who had always been proud of his ignorance, was disappointed to learn that he had passed all his exams.
